Going Public
by BenRG
Summary: We've all seen the apocalyptic 'Five Years On'... What about a 5YO where things are a lot lighter? No secret is forever, after all. PeterNiki, but not central
1. Errand of Mercy

**Going Public**

A 'Heroes' fanfiction by BenRG

**Disclaimer**

'Heroes' was created by Tim Kring and is the property of Universal Studios and Tailwind Productions. This is a not-for-profit fan work for free distribution through the Worldwide Web. No infringement of any trademark property or copyright is intended nor any ownership of any trademarked or copyrighted property claimed.

**Author's Notes**

We are all familiar with the multiple apocalyptic scenarios that have faced Peter and Hiro every time they look 'Five Years On'. Let's instead look at a slightly more hopeful future. After all, bad times come and go and no one doubts the terrible struggle that awaits the Heroes in the years to come. The fight for the future is one that, after all, cannot be won, only lost.

However, instead of dwelling on troubling times and terrible endings, let us instead see what might happen if there is something of a more positive ending. Instead of a great struggle, a willing acceptance of obscurity. As Kaito Nakamura so clearly counselled his son, sometimes the real place for a hero is not in the limelight but in the shadows, always watching, always ready.

This story was written after seeing 'Second Coming' (3x01). It may therefore be AU to the rest of Season 3.

Censor: PG – Just for safety's sake

**Chapter 1 – Errand of Mercy**

_Niki Petrelli  
__Hope, Washington State, USA  
__8:15 AM - 3__rd__ June 2011_

Nicola 'Niki' Petrelli (_née_ Hawkins, _née_ Saunders) would like to believe that, despite everything, she is a fairly normal thirty-something woman. So, whilst out shopping in the centre of the small town where her extended family had finally settled, when she heard the police sirens, she instinctively found herself moving towards the disturbance.

It had been a hard, no, _horrific_ five years. From the manifestation of her powers, the long months of living the lives of different women due to her brain chemistry disorder and that final, awful secret war that climaxed in her husband being forced to kill his long-lost brother, Gabriel, to save the world from his madness. The extended Petrelli clan of Peter, Niki herself, her son by her first marriage, Micah, Peter's niece Claire and her boyfriend David had all moved to the most out-of-the-way place they could find, the town of Hope, on the Pacific coast of Washington State.

Why? Well, it was the dream of their bubbly Japanese friend, Hiro Nakamura, that they form a crusading band of heroes to defend the weak and innocent and fight for justice. However, Peter's older brother, Nathan, had a different idea and, some reluctantly, others with a sense of relief the other 'gifted' in their band all agreed to follow this alternate path.

"_What good will come from exposure?_" He had asked. "_If there is anything that history has taught us, it is that powerful public figures are inevitably the nucleus and focus of the forces of evil, no matter how good their intentions. It also teaches us that freely exercised power inevitably leads to corruption. If we were to do as Hiro suggests, no matter how much good we would do, we would merely crystallise and inflame the very ambitious and corrupt individuals against whom he proposes that we fight. We would also have to be constantly on guard against taking that step from being _protectors _to be _rulers_._

"_Instead, we should just go our way and find our lives. I'm not saying that we should forget what we can do… that would be like trying to forget how to walk or talk. I'm saying that we shouldn't go looking for trouble, as that is a sure-fire way of finding it. Trouble will find us, my friends, and if we need to act, we will know when and we will know how._

"_Instead of being policemen, we should be… guardians. Waiting in the shadows, always watching and always ready but only acting when it is needed_."

Any further debate was curtailed by, of all people, Hiro. "_That is what my father was trying to tell me,_" he announced to the startled group. "_If I had not been so impatient, so eager for adventure and glory, then so much of the disasters of the past five years would have never happened._" Hiro had looked down in shame for a moment before Ando put a comforting hand on his shoulder, making him look up with a grateful smile. "_The hardest duty of a hero,_" Hiro had announced, "_is to do _nothing_… until the day comes when he must act._"

With Hiro's unhappy agreement, the alliance to stop Sylar and Arthur Petrelli had scattered to the four corners of the world. Hiro, Ando and Hiro's pretty botanomorpher girlfriend, Hideiko, went back to Japan. Adam Monroe had loudly stated his intention to spend 'a century or two' in a Buddhist monastery in Tibet 'to think about what I'm going to do next.' Nathan had gone home to New York and his family; he had since gained a Doctorate in Divinity and had become a Baptist preacher. Matt had taken Molly back to his family and, from his infrequent 'phone calls and Molly's far more frequent email and IM contacts, Micah assured his family that they were doing well.

After accompanying Niki and Micah in bearing poor Monica's body back to Nana, Peter decided to go somewhere totally new, somewhere one could disappear despite being in plain sight. Niki, thinking that this was a great idea, accompanied him, as did Claire and David, having nowhere else to go after Sylar's senseless obliteration of Costa Verde and their families. Some time over the last three years, the two of them had grown together. The deal was finally sealed when Micah had sighed and announced: "_Dad wouldn't have wanted you to be alone, Mom_."

So it was that the newly-married Petrellis and their young kin settled in Hope, Washington, a town large enough to offer the comforts of anonymity but small enough that little of interest ever happened there. Peter was able to get a job at the county hospital where his helpful nature and uncanny ability to sense _just_ what people needed enabled him to quickly rise up the ranks of the nursing staff. Niki worked in a store and was quite happy to be an ordinary mom to Micah and aunt to her orphaned step-niece. For the past six months, life had been unextraordinary and settled. Until today.

As Niki approached the sound of the disturbance, she could feel something crawling in the back of her head. Over time, Peter had been teaching Niki the 'index card' method of ordering the mind that enabled him to sort through the spectacular range of powers that his empathic meta-mimicry gave him. Niki's own abilities were more problematic. Her Multiple Personality Disorder effected such violent changes in her brain chemistry that each of her 'selves' had a distinct power. Peter had taught her to remember the sensations without letting the other 'selves' take control, enabling her to manifest each of their four 'gifts' whenever she needed them.

Currently, she could 'hear' Gina, possibly the most objectionable of her 'selves'. Gina was an empath, able to sense others emotions and influence their emotions in turn, to a certain extent. It had made her a spectacularly capable prostitute but contributed to an incredibly submissive personality. Right now, Gina was whimpering in empathic discomfort and Niki wasn't surprised as she registered the tidal wave of fear, panic and _pain_ flowing down North Street like a tidal wave.

"You okay, lady?" Niki looked up at the man who had spoken and realised that she had stopped in her tracks and fallen to her knees.

"S'okay," she replied to the Good Samaritan and stood up. "I'm just coming down with a bit of a headache." The man nodded, a peculiar expression on his face, and moved on.

_Who says you don't know how to put on an act, Baby Sister?_ Jessi sneered in Niki's head. Niki growled and ruthlessly shoved down on the super-strong psychotic's thoughts. Jessi hadn't significantly affected her in years and she wasn't about to come back any time soon.

Niki turned the corner and, along with all the other bystanders, gaped in horror at the sight before her.

In the middle of the junction of North and Main, the central crossroads of the town, two vehicles were tangled together, surrounded by all four pursuit cruisers deployed by the Hope Sheriff's Department. A huge armoured security van was tilted over onto one side at a crazy angle, having apparently lost control and tumbled over in the middle of a tight high-speed turn. However, it was the vehicle against which the van was leaning, crumpling its front inward like it was made of paper-machae, that caught Niki's attention. It was a yellow school bus.

_MICAH_! All four of Niki's selves screamed the name simultaneously and it took Niki a few seconds to regain control. Carefully focussing her thoughts, she reached out with her empathy and sighed in relief when she didn't feel the distinct 'tang' of her son's emotions. _Not that it would mean much if he were unconscious or…_ Niki cut off Tracey's grim prognosis and focussed her thoughts again. It was not the junior high school's bus, she now noted with some relief, rather the senior high school. As she watched, the Sheriff's Deputies had opened the escape door at the rear and was helping a selection of dazed and bloodied late-teen boys and girls out to a makeshift infirmary that was being set up on the road. At the other end of the disaster zone, the Sheriff's Deputies had extracted three dark-clad young men from the security van and the three were now sitting by the Sheriff's own car, handcuffed and looking miserable and fearful.

Niki looked on as the Sheriff consulted with the Fire Chief. The two were pointing at the crumpled front of the school van and she heard them say 'trapped in the wreckage'. She also 'heard' their despair and helpless fury.

Niki slowly filtered towards the back of the crowd, her mind a whirl of conflicting thoughts (all, thankfully, her own, but still confused). Empathically, she could sense at least six individuals still on the bus, all in considerable distress and pain. _They need to get them out __now_, she realised. _But who knows how long it will take to get the rescue equipment here? Hope isn't exactly Las Vegas, after all!_ Niki looked over the heads of the crowd at the wreckage again. _I shouldn't get involved_, she counselled herself. _I'm no rescue expert. If I go running in there, I'll just cause trouble! I might even get people hurt…! Oh, shit. Who am I kidding?_

Nathan had been right. There was a difference between _looking_ for trouble and _reacting_ when trouble came calling. He said that they would _know_ when the time came. Niki wasn't sure if she had this sense of _rightness_ about what was happening (something that Peter and Hiro seemed to have) that should tell her that it was time to act. However, she _did_ have Peter's vague warning from his precognition, which led her to wear a certain item of apparel under her street clothes. She also knew that she would find it easier to stop breathing than to leave a bunch of kids to possibly die by not acting if she could.

With a sigh, Niki slipped away from the crowd and headed into the service alleyway behind the shops on Main Street.

The skin-tight, armoured synthetic-fibre body suit that Niki was wearing under her street clothes had been designed by the research technicians at Hiro's company, the Yamagato Corporation. It was a miracle of materials technology, allowing Niki a full range of movement whilst protecting her against edged weapons, moderate blunt-force impacts and bullets up to 9mm pistol calibre. It had also been modified in several ways to allow Niki to use her powers to the very greatest extent (Claire's was, by necessity, even more heavily customised).

Niki finished stripping out of her street clothes and tucking them into her shoulder-bag. She quickly pulled on her "super-suit's" boots (with built-up heels) and gloves and finally pulled up the face-mask that covered her neck, ears and the top of her face whilst allowing her hair to flow freely down her back. Niki looked down self-consciously at the skin-tight costume in two-tone grey with a triangular leaf-green insert over her left shoulder and breast with the white 'double-bar-f' emblem that had been a symbol of the 'gifted' for four centuries. _This is stupid! I feel like a character in one of Micah's comic books!_ Then she felt the fading in the panic and fear from the bus. The children's strength was failing. Time was running out.

Niki reached out with the gift that was uniquely her own - magnetokinesis, the ability to manipulate metal by generating magnetic fields, and grasped the steel threads running through her suit. With an exercise of will, she was lofted up into the air to soar over the roof of the stores.

* * *

Sheriff Deke Hollins was grimly watching the Fire Department's desperate attempts to get at the school bus driver and six kids stuck in the wreckage of the school bus. He had been Sheriff of this town for over twenty years now and had, before this day, never had an attempted cash van heist. It was somehow inevitable that the pursuit through the town as the reckless thieves tried to drive their loot away would end in such a disaster.

Suddenly, he was aware of movement above him and a rippling gasp from the crowd of rubber-necking bystanders who were watching the slow, painstaking rescue process. Hollins looked around and saw something that would be imprinted on his mind for the rest of his life. As he watched, a beautiful blonde woman in a grey and green body suit gently and soundlessly wafted to the ground at his side as gently as a leaf falling from a tree during Fall.

"What's the situation, Sheriff?" the woman snapped in a tone that announced authority and confidence.

* * *

Will Donald was one of the roving reporters for Hope's NBC affiliate, WGBR-5. Normally, his work day was spent merely with reporting on traffic snarl-ups and local politics. Today was his first major crime incident and he was currently on camera, recording a report. It would definitely be the lead story on the station's evening news bulletin. Indeed, as ghoulish as it was, the plight of the children might even ensure that his report would reach the national bulletin! This could be his big chance!

"The Hope Fire Department states that everything that can be done is being done to free the seven people, including six teenage children, trapped in the wreckage of the Owen Garriott High School bus. However, sources in the department, speaking on conditions of anonymity, state that heavy equipment will be required to reach these victims and that the severity of their injuries would make further delays… Michelle, what's wrong with you? Keep the camera on me!"

Michelle Walker, his camerawoman for five years now, had let the lens of her camera droop slightly. She was looking at something in the sky, over Will's shoulder. Instinctively, and with an annoyed expression, Will looked around and saw the grey-clad blonde woman drift to the ground, her long hair streaming out behind her.

Will's mind locked up for a second before journalistic instinct cut in. "Michelle! Camera on that woman! Now! Get _everything_!" Will looked to where his technician was standing in the side door of their van, also staring open-mouthed at the sight. "Benny! Tell studio that we need to go live! _Now_!"

* * *

"What are you supposed to be?" Hollins had recovered enough of his poise and focus to look at the woman in the Halloween costume with an appropriate level of surprise and mistrust. There had been rumours flying around about people with 'freak' powers for some time now. There were stories on the Feds' 'most wanted' bulletins of 'terrorists' responsible for wide-scale damage in Los Angeles, Houston and New York accompanied by warnings of 'unusual, paranormal phenomenon'. Hollins had thought that was a lot of moon-shine from over-excitable kids and drugged-up 'witnesses'. Now he had to wonder.

Niki glared at the Sheriff, letting all of Tracey's natural authority flow out and obliterate her own nervousness and embarrassment. "Sheriff, we can stand here talking, or we can take action. I know that there are at least half a dozen people trapped in that wreckage. What I want to know is: what needs to be done?"

Hollins shrugged. What the hell? There was no harm in saying it. The kook was probably harmless. "The front two rows of seats were crushed under the weight of the security truck," he explained. "The kids are trapped under the metal and are all pretty badly hurt. The collapsed hand-rails and support columns have turned it into a damned maze of metal and, with the roof crushed in like that, we can't reach them from behind. We've called to Seattle for a heavy crane to lift the truck out of the way, but it will be at least an hour. The way some of them are bleeding…" Hollins shook his head. "Look, we are doing everything we can. Just stand back and stay out of the rescue squads'…"

Niki interrupted the Sheriff's words. "The first step has to be to get that van out of the way," she stated. "Once that is done, we need to open the wreckage of the bus to get at the victims, right?"

Hollins nodded. "Yeah, it'll be a while, though… Hey! What are you doing you crazy…?" The woman in grey had started to jog towards the wreckage with a strange and slightly alarming air of confidence. "Get away from there! That's an order!"

Niki ignored the Sheriff as she jogged over to the overturned security truck. Up close, she could see that the 'saddle' fuel tanks were intact, so there was no chance of an explosion or fire, thank God. Of course, there was no guarantee that the fuel tanks of the school bus were still in such a good state so she would have to be cautious.

Niki could hear Hollins walking towards her, blustering angrily (and doubtless pulling out some handcuffs to restrain her). She did not concern herself about such things. Instead she thought of Jessi. For all she was a slut and a murderous psychotic, Jessi had one immense asset – her confidence. She could handle any situation and face down any threat without even using her gift – superhuman strength, agility and speed. Thinking of Jessi's strength, Niki leaned down and carefully positioned herself half-way along the length of the security truck, hands either side of the drive shaft. Bracing her elbows she began to push up from her knees and hips whilst tilting the truck away from the bus.

Hollins stormed forward, furious. "Get away from there! You are asking for a night in the jail house, young… lady…! My… _merciful_… GOD!" Hollins looked on in amazement as the grey-clad woman braced her body and... and _began to lift the truck_! First tilting it away from the bus and then shifting herself underneath it, slowly straightening her body until she stood tall, holding the whole 5-ton mass over her head as effortlessly as Hollins would lift up one of his grandchildren.

Watching the balance of the heavy truck carefully, Niki gingerly stepped away from the bus. After a few yards, which felt like miles because of the effort of keeping the mass balanced, Nikki slowly bent down, lowering the truck to the ground, scooting over to one side so she could lower it onto its wheels without being caught under the chassis.

The crowd had fallen silent. All the rescuers had frozen, unable to believe what they were seeing. To one side, Will Donald looked at Michelle out of the corner of his eye. "Please, God, tell me that you got that!" Michelle managed a convulsive nod, her eyes bugging out.

Niki strode back towards the ruined front of the bus. It was hard to imagine that anything had survived that catastrophe, but her empathy could still pick up six distinct traces of terror and pain. She briefly considered the task before her and came to a decision. _The structure of the roof only. Leave the chassis and the interior until you've got a good idea of what is there._ Reaching out with her magnetokinesis, she grasped the steel structure of the bus. The crowd gasped in horror and amazement as the grey clad woman raised her arms as if to touch the bus and then flung them apart. The caved-in yellow steel of the vehicle's roof _tore_ like paper with a tortured shriek, peeling back like a banana skin.

The first sight that met Niki's appalled gaze was the remains of the driver. The impact had quite literally crushed and pulped his body. Not even Claire's powers would have been able to help him. Niki covered her mouth and desperately fought down the urge to vomit. She had seen worse in the last five years. _The children, think of the children!_

Six kids, all bloodied and semi-conscious, had been revealed to the light. The seats and hand-bars had crumpled around them, trapping their legs and bodies. Niki leapt up onto what was once the front platform of the bus, beside the driver's position and grabbed a collapsed bulkhead holding down two kids. With a quick application of Jessi's strength, the steel bent back, revealing four mangled legs. Niki looked over her shoulder at the frozen firemen and paramedics. "_Medic!_" she screamed. "_Get medics over here now!_"

Freed from their stunned paralysis by her words, the rescuers raced forward to the stricken children.

* * *

By now, the live coverage from Main and North, Hope, Washington State was going out live on WGBR-5. From there it had been picked up by the parent network, NBC. Realising what was being shown, the feed was taken up by the other networks and by the rolling news networks, Fox and CNN. By now, everyone in the world who had access to TV was watching the woman with super powers helping rescue children, shrugging aside steel as if it were paper and lifting impossible weights with ease.

In New York City, Dr. Nathan Petrelli, DD, smiled in a relieved way at the image of his step-sister on the TV in his humble house. "God bless you, Niki," he murmured. "I knew that you would know the moment. There _is_ a reason why we have been given these gifts."

Not that far away, in the Hampton Hills, Angela Petrelli glared at the screen in her palatial but only-too-empty mansion. "Damn that stupid girl!" she hissed. "There's no way we can control this now! _Why _didn't Peter listen to me?" Furious, cursing the clouding that Matt Parkman had placed on her mind that prevented her from using her precognition, she switched off the TV and began making urgent plans.

In New Orleans, Louisiana, Nana Dawson smiled at the sight of that dear child, living up to her God-given gift, just as Micah had always hoped. She smiled at the photo of Monica. "It wasn't for nothin', child," she assured the memory of her dead granddaughter.

In Los Angeles, Matt Parkman glanced at the TV playing in the entrance area of the precinct house and grinned at the sight. He knew it would be one of the Petrellis that would break first. They were too much 'believers' to remain hidden for too long. Still… it was startling that it was Niki rather than Claire or Pete. He promised to call his friends this evening; no doubt Molly would be desperate to get the 'inside dope' from Micah anyway.

In Hope County Hospital, Peter Petrelli paused in pushing around the medicine cart for the morning rounds in the medical wards and grinned at the pictures being shown on every TV set. He had been ready to make his excuses and fly off to help with the situation himself, but he was glad to see that his wife had everything under control. "Way to go, Niki," he murmured to himself, before continuing to help Dr. Collins in his rounds, the friendly, reassuring Chief Nurse Peter that all the patients trusted and loved.

* * *

"Am… Am I gonna die, Miss?"

_Damn good question!_ Gina murmured in Niki's head as the blonde woman looked at the last and most severely-distressed of the children in the ruins of the school bus. The black-haired Hispanic girl was not suffering from particularly severe crush injuries but she had been harpooned through the groin by a falling hand-rail propelled by the immense force of the crash. As far as Niki could tell, the girl was pinned through to the chair behind and was still attached to the remains of the roof from in front.

"We'll need to get the jaws and cut her free," a fireman said from over Niki's shoulder.

"The trick will be moving her without tearing the femoral artery," a paramedic added. "Even the vibration of the jaws might cause that bar to shift and start her haemorrhaging."

Niki fought down an urge to slap the two men upside the head for discussing the poor girl's possible death in front of her. There _had _to be something that she could do. Trying to move the steel bar magnetically was out – the paramedic said it could tear a blood vessel in the girl's body. Similarly, the use of her super strength was out. Suddenly a half-remembered conversation with Peter came to mind.

"Hey!" Niki called. The paramedic looked over at her. "I heard that cold stops pain and slows blood flow. Is that right?"

The paramedic blinked and nodded. "That's right – it numbs the sensory nerves and causes blood vessels to contract."

"Okay," Niki said. "I'm getting her out of here now. Get a gurney ready." So total was the awe felt towards Niki at that point that the paramedic did not question her but ran off to obey. Niki looked up at the pretty girl's tear-streaked face. "Don't worry, honey," she said with a smile. "You're going to be okay."

"They… they said…!"

"They don't know," Niki said with a total confidence that she wished she actually felt. "What's your name, honey?"

"S… Sarah."

"Sarah. A pretty name for a pretty girl." That earned a slight smile. "Okay, Sarah. I need you to be brave and stay still. I'm going to get you loose but it is going to be a bit weird. Your leg will get cold and numb but that isn't anything to worry about, okay?"

Niki recalled Tracey, her most recent foray into being someone else. Tracey was a political operator _par excellence_. A confident woman with a natural authority and skill with people that inspired trust and confidence. She also had a gift – one that Peter called 'nanokinesis', the ability to control the motions of individual molecules, either heating or chilling substances by changing the energy of their molecular structure.

Niki called on that gift now as she gently touched the flesh where the metal tube stuck into Sarah's body. Sarah shuddered slightly as the flesh gently chilled, numbing all sensation and reducing blood flow to the area. Niki now moved her grasp to the metal bar itself, pushing Tracey's power into it to a far greater degree. Flash-chilled, the metal became as brittle as glass and shattered from a super-strong squeeze of the hand. Reaching out with her magnetokinesis, Niki peeled back the metal structure of the seat underneath Sarah, allowing her to gently lift the girl out whilst she magnetically held the treacherous metal completely still.

"Over here!" yelled a paramedic. Niki gratefully lowered Sarah onto a gurney, lying her on her side so that the remains of the metal tube remained undisturbed. "We'll take it from here, Ma'am. Nice job, by the way. She'll make it, I promise."

Niki nodded with a smile, grateful beyond belief that her ad-hoc plan had worked. As she was wheeled away to an ambulance, Sarah managed a slight wave and mouthed 'Thank you'. All around Niki, the crowd erupted into cheers and shouts of triumph; all directed at her.

Niki sighed and relaxed for a moment before tensing as she heard several people running towards her. She spun around… and had a TV camera thrust into her face. "Miss! I'm Will Donald, WGBR-5 News! Ma'am that was a spectacular display and I'm sure that I speak for the whole town in thanking you for your efforts!"

Niki focussed on the TV camera and somehow fought down a desire to blush or to just fly off.

Will was talking a mile a minute, working mostly from instinct. "Do you have a statement? What led you to assist in this situation?" He thrust his microphone in the superwoman's face (hmm… Superwoman! Nice!).

Niki sighed. There was no way of getting out of this right now and, as much as she wanted too, Tracey's instincts told her that running off wouldn't achieve anything. "I'm just a passer-by, doing her best to help," she responded with a slight smile. "I'm sure that anyone with a conscience would do the same."

_That _was unexpected and Will was nonplussed for a moment. In distant New York, Nathan roared with laughter at the reporter's expression. Will got it back together to ask another question: "Ma'am, if you don't mind me asking, who are you? _What_ are you? Are you from another world?"

Niki laughed aloud. "No, I'm from Nevada," she said. "Look, I'm really no-one special. I have some gifts that either genetics, luck or destiny gave me. I'm just trying to do the right thing with them." She stepped back. It was time to go, before her nerve failed her or she let something slip that revealed her true identity to the world. "Now, if you excuse me…" She gathered the magnetic fields around her and, as everyone watched, the TV pictures fizzed with static for a moment in sympathy.

"Who are you?" Will tried again. "What should we call you?"

Niki thought about that for a moment. _Definitely_ not 'Superwoman' or something similar (yuck!). Hmm… She found herself thinking of her dead twin sister and how it was a memory of her that, in so very many ways, started all of this for her. She also remembered Nana's love for astrology and her birth sign. Yes… Yes, that was right for her. She could _feel_ it. "Call me 'Gemini'," she said, gathered her power and lifted effortlessly into the air, arms raised to either side like a balancing gymnast.

Michelle panned her camera up, tracking the amazing woman with her astonishing powers soaring up into the heavens, quickly lost to sight. "Gemini, ladies and gentlemen," Will narrated as she did so. "Call her 'Gemini'. I do not believe that I exaggerate when I say that this is _the _most significant report that I have ever made… that I ever _could_ make. A new age, it seems, is dawning. An age of heroes."

* * *

As she soared away Niki couldn't help but grin. _Damn_! Hiro (and Micah) was right. You _did_ get a buzz out of doing the 'superhero' thing! Suddenly a thought struck her – she'd left her bag and 'civvies' behind. Niki giggled slightly. She was so focussed on helping those trapped kids that she hadn't thought about how and when she could change back! She decided that she couldn't exactly go looking for them now, she'd land in the back garden of the house and hope that David was around to let her in. Then she'd change and drive back to get her stuff back.

She shook her head as she changed the angle of her flight-path so that she could double-back to her home neighbourhood. _This is when it all changes_, she realised. _Later, we're gonna look back at this moment and think: This is when it all began_.

**Afterword**

And that's a wrap!

I've also got chapters for Claire's 'coming out' (live on national TV) and a big final show for the entire extended Petrelli clan. Let me know if you would like to see it!

BTW – "Botanokinesis" is the ability to manipulate plant life – their shape, growth and even getting them to move. Poison Ivy in the 'Batman' cartoons is a good example of a botanokinetic.


	2. Think or Do

**Going Public**

A 'Heroes' fanfiction by BenRG

**Disclaimer**

'Heroes' was created by Tim Kring and is the property of Universal Studios and Tailwind Productions. This is a not-for-profit fan work for free distribution through the Worldwide Web. No infringement of any trademark property or copyright is intended nor any ownership of any trademarked or copyrighted property claimed.

**Author's Notes**

We are all familiar with the multiple apocalyptic scenarios that have faced Peter and Hiro every time they look 'Five Years On'. Let's instead look at a slightly more hopeful future. After all, bad times come and go and no one doubts the terrible struggle that awaits the Heroes in the years to come. The fight for the future is one that, after all, cannot be won, only lost.

However, instead of dwelling on troubling times and terrible endings, let us instead see what might happen if there is something of a more positive ending. Instead of a great struggle, a willing acceptance of obscurity. As Kaito Nakamura so clearly counselled his son, sometimes the real place for a hero is not in the limelight but in the shadows, always watching, always ready.

This story was written after seeing 'Second Coming' (3x01). It may therefore be AU to the rest of Season 3.

Censor: PG – Just for safety's sake

**Chapter 2 – Think or Do**

_Claire Bennett  
__New York City, NY State, USA  
__10:45 PM – 8__th__ June 2011_

There were many advantages, Claire decided, on being a cellular regenerative polymorph. As well as being as close to unkillable as made no odds, she also found that she had one or two extra abilities that made life a lot easier if, as many teens and 'tweens' desired, she just wanted to be alone.

It was during their time as fugitives, when The Company had sought to use its governmental contacts to wipe out all super-powered individuals outside its control, that Claire had tapped into the hidden parts of her powers that Sylar had so casually hinted at when he had assaulted her and copied her powers. She found that she could consciously control the rapid cellular reproduction that was the key to her regenerative powers. With control came the ability to reshape her body in accord with her will. Initially, she could only do the simplest things – change the length of her limbs, change her hair or eye colour and small aspects of her physical features. It wasn't until the terrible fight for survival and freedom heated up even further that she discovered the means to turn what had previously been a solely passive ability into means of active defence – growing claws, bony spurs and armour over her body. Combined with her ability to heal near-instantly from most injuries and the loss of her pain sensation during Sylar's assault, she became quite the fighter, able to shrug off any attack before launching a lethal series of attacks with edged weapons grown out of the very substance of her body.

Of course, she wasn't engaged in a fight now. She might have been in her fighting garb (what she cheerfully called her 'super-suit'), generally similar to her step-aunt Niki's apart from having a canary yellow triangular insert over her left shoulder and breast, but she wasn't fighting. She was wearing it because it allowed her to use her powers without shredding her clothes (she didn't do the nudist thing, thank you).

Right now, Claire was using her powers to shape her feet into raptor-like talons that she was using to hang onto the side of the Woolworth Building in the old city part of Uptown New York. Twenty-eight storeys above ground level. Leaning back against the walls of the old sky-scraper, with her legs tucked underneath her, she could listen to her MP3 player and think without having to deal with too many interruptions.

And, let's face it, Claire had a _lot_ to think about at the best of times. The list of things alone could take a while to go through! If it wasn't her family issues (and, boy, did her family have a lot of _issues_), there was the issue that she was _technically_ an orphan but not so at the same time, as her _adopted_ family was dead even though her _biological parents _were quite alive, thank you.

Then there was the issue of her powers and how she was hunted by various special interest groups, both human and superhuman, for access to the 'fountain of youth' and the key to artificially inducing metahuman powers, all contained in her mutant makeup. Or, she could focus on the fact that her somehow disabled sense of pain, combined with her healing powers, served to make her feel _inhuman_ under the best of circumstances.

Claire sighed. All in all, she was incredibly surprised that she hadn't started dying her hair black and listening to Emo or Goth music on her MP3 Player. Claire shuddered. Another bad thought: The black-haired assassin, 'Dark Claire', from an alternate version of the future would be something that would haunt her memory for some time. The thought that she could have so easily become the second Sylar…! West used to tease her that she was the 'freak of freaks' and sometimes she suspected that this was true.

Of course West was another sore spot. One of these days, she hoped that she would get a boyfriend who wasn't either a criminal psychotic or a close relative. David had, thus far, not revealed himself to be either of these things. However, the last five years had left Claire with a badly bruised heart and she realised that she was still waiting for the other shoe to drop with her newest boyfriend.

"You know, young lady, you are technically out after curfew."

Claire started and nearly lost grip on the wall of the skyscraper in surprise at hearing the voice (not that the nearly thirty-storey drop to the sidewalk would more than seriously inconvenience her). Her biological father, Nathan Petrelli, was hovering in front of her, arms folded in front of him and one eyebrow quirked in a questioning way.

"Nathan, I'm twenty-three years old. I'm kind of old for a curfew!" Despite everything, she still called him 'Nathan'. Claire had never got close enough to her biological father to refer to him as 'Dad', even in her head. 'Dad' would always be Noah Bennett, even though he was a sociopathic monster who had used her and manipulated her for her entire life, all whilst telling himself (and meaning it!) that he was only doing it because he loved her.

Nathan grinned in the way that Claire realised both Peter and Sylar shared. "Maybe so, Claire, but you are a guest in my house, so I'd prefer it if you were at home by lights out."

Claire shook her head. "Nathan, don't you ever just want to get away from the world and think?"

Nathan smiled and drifted closer. He reached out to brush some of Claire's honey blonde hair away from her face. "More often than you might guess," he replied. "I'll tell you the truth, though: Trying to think things through on your own is not always a good idea. We think things are darker than they really are when we are on our own."

Claire looked at Nathan thoughtfully. "Can things really be bright now? After all the death?"

Nathan smiled. "Yes, because we are alive. 'Where there's life, there's hope.' It's a cliché but that doesn't stop it from being true, Claire." He drifted back away, making a show of respecting her personal space. "I think you owe it to Sandra and Lyle to make their deaths mean something, don't you?"

Sometime over the past two years, the agony she felt at hearing those names had dulled to an empty throb and she found herself thinking more of the good times rather than the meaningless loss. Maybe that proved Nathan's point. Claire couldn't help but laugh hollowly when she realised how subtly Nathan was forcing her to change her focus. "Thanks! Do I owe you anything for the sermon, Reverend?"

Nathan smiled in response to the lighter expression on his daughter's face. "Yes. You pay me by getting yourself home right now and tucked up in bed. Tomorrow is going to be a big day."

Claire watched her biological father fly off with a slight grin. To give Nathan credit, for all his many inadequacies, he had always tried to live up to his perceived responsibilities towards her. "Yeah, go 'home'," she said to herself in a thoughtful tone. "Your home anyway. I wonder if I'll ever think of anywhere as 'home' ever again?" Claire shrugged. Nathan was right about one thing: Thinking too much tended to just leave your mind going in circles. Better to act and let such issues lie until you had the data you needed to work out an answer.

Claire willed bony claws to extend from her finger tips and, boosting the density of the muscles in her limbs, she launched herself into the air. Leaping from building to building like some cross of Spider-Man and a monkey, Claire set course for the Upper West Side and Nathan's family home. Nathan didn't like to go too fast when he flew. Claire wondered if she would beat him back to the brownstone where his family lived.

As she did so, Claire reflected that she was a lot more comfortable with her powers these days to the point that she often used them without even thinking about it. That, she decided, was another probable good sign. _Normal is what you make it_, she decided. _If I can make these things part of my life rather than what makes me 'different', then I'm not such a freak after all!_ Claire decided in that moment that her 'aunt' Niki was right in what she did not so long ago. Not the superhero thing, Claire had no desire to become a costumed 'Mystery-Man', oh no. No, in what she said: 'I'm just trying to do the right thing with them'! Yes, that was the way to handle these powers. Just to try to do the right thing. Whatever that turned out to be.

_

* * *

_

Peter and Niki

_Hope, Washington State, USA  
__6:12am – 9__th__ June 2011_

"Peter?" Niki Petrelli looked up from her bed, realising that the space usually occupied by her husband of six months now was empty. "Peter, honey, what's…?" Niki stopped and gasped. Peter Petrelli was standing in front of an easel set up in the corner of their bedroom, slapping paint onto a canvas quickly as he could. His eyes were completely a sightless white! Niki couldn't help but shiver. As many times as she had seen Peter use his long-range precognitive powers, it still freaked her out. It was almost as if a part of him was lost in the future and trying to make its way back!

Peter's frantic movements suddenly slowed and he staggered back, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, they were his normal deep brown colour. "I had a dream," he said breathlessly. "I realised it was Issac's powers calling to me so… So I gave them rein."

Niki stood up and walked over to the canvas. "Aw, spit," the Nevadan woman sighed as she looked at the painting. "Why can't it ever be good news?"

Peter sighed. "I couldn't get that lucky," he remarked. "Actually, I don't think that it activates for 'good news'. Only 'beware, beware, doom approaches' stuff."

Niki swallowed a desire to laugh at Peter's whimsy. The situation really didn't allow for it. The painting was an image from a nightmare. A blonde young woman, clearly Claire, was hugging two horrified young men… no, only boys really, who made Niki immediately think of Nathan's sons, and not letting them look at the figure lying on the ground behind them next to an overturned speaker's lectern. The figure's face was covered in blood and was utterly unrecognisable. However, given Claire's reaction and the pastor's dog-collar it was wearing, Niki realised that it was Nathan.

Niki shivered. "When?"

"It must be within the next week as Claire is due to come back from New York after that," Peter said. "I know _where_ too. That building? It's the New York Public Library and that's the Chrysler Building in the background. They're in Bryant Square Park." Peter looked around him, searching for something. "Where's Claire's phone number, Niki?"

* * *

_Claire Bennett  
__New York City, NY State, USA  
__8:15am – 9__th__ June 2011_

Claire, wearing her best 'business' clothes, leaned against the tree as she listened to Nathan continuing his sermon-cum-campaign speech on a stage to her left. Since the events of the past five years, he had become more and more determined to somehow help the country find a way out of what he perceived to be an all-pervasive social and moral crisis. Who knows? Maybe he was right! Thinking of her grandfather's misguided attempt to 'kick-start human evolution' and Sylar's mad quest to 'make something of himself' she reflected that Petrelli men had a weakness for causes, the more hopeless the better.

Suddenly, Claire's cellphone began to play the theme tune for Disney's Kim Possible, a whimsy on her part but she felt that the do-gooder nature of her Uncle Peter really matched the personality of the cartoon character. She flipped open her cell, grateful that she had declined a spot on the stage alongside Heidi, Simon and Monty. It enabled her to get stuff done. She really wasn't one for the limelight, anyway. "Claire Bennett's House of Pain!" she said brightly. "You specify and we scream! How can I suffer for you?"

"_Claire?_" Peter's voice was sharp and Claire straightened up, immediately sliding into 'crisis' mode. "_Where are you?_"

"Uh… Listening to Nathan's speech, why?"

"_Where is Nathan giving a speech? Hurry, Claire, it's important._" Claire suddenly realised that Peter must have had one of his premonitions/art attacks.

"Um… Midtown! Bryant Square Park…!"

"_Damn! Claire, Nathan's in danger… A sniper it looks like! Get him off the stage! Do it now!_"

"_Peter! He's on CNN! Come see!_" Claire filtered out Niki's voice as she quickly swept the park with eyes that had become bitterly accustomed to finding possible threats. There had to be nearly a thousand people seated in the park, listening to Nathan. In this uncertain post-9/11 world, any gathering of this sort would have included some measure of a search for hidden weapons. Claire's eyes immediately fell on a battered UPS courier van sitting at the entrance to the park by the Subway entrance. The van was empty, sitting on a controlled parking spot… _and something was pointing out of the side loading door_.

The van was too far away. Acting on instinct, Claire dropped her cellphone and lunged forwards towards her biological father, towards the man who had always shown her such kindness and consideration who, despite his manifold faults and failings, was fundamentally a _good_ man. "DADDY!" she screamed, not aware of her own words, as she pounded up the steps onto the stage, lunging towards the man standing at the lectern.

Claire didn't feel the two rifle-calibre bullets strike her heart as she flung herself in front of Nathan, of course. What Sylar had done to her made that impossible. She felt impacts drive all the breath out of her body, saw the ground at the bottom of the stage tilting crazily towards her and then there was only darkness and silence.

"Claire! Oh my dear _God_! _no__!_" Heidi screamed before a Secret Service guard grabbed her and flung her to the stage, covering her with his own body.

"Gunshots! Clear the park!"

"Down! Everybody get down!"

Nathan did not obey that injunction of course. Instead, he leapt off of the platform and grabbed Claire's blood-splattered body. "Claire!" he murmured, wiping the hair back from her frighteningly pale face as he frantically checked her over. No head or neck injuries. Good. The gunshot wounds would barely slow her down then. The problem was how to get her out of the park so that no one would notice what would come next because she had very obviously stopped breathing. Nathan's thinking processes were slowed by the shock he was feeling, both at the sudden attack (the Secret Service had warned him of threats made against him but to actually have it happen in front of his family…!) and at Claire's words. _She called me 'Daddy'_, he thought fuzzily.

Suddenly, a camera was practically stuck in his face. "Doctor Petrelli!" a reporter yelled. "Are you hurt? Who is this? One of your Secret Service detail?"

"Get that camera away!" Nathan shouted, shoving the camera way from him. "For God's sake haven't you a shred of decency?" He had maybe seconds to get that camera pointing somewhere else.

Just to make things really interesting, a FDNY paramedic rushed over. "Sir, let me take her, I promise that we'll do whatever we can!" The man immediately ripped open Claire's blouse to expose her chest and the two twenty-two-calibre holes all too horribly clear against the pale flesh of her chest.

The reporter was babbling into his microphone as the camera remained focussed on Claire and the paramedic's attempts to prise her out of Nathan's hands. "Yes, this is the young woman who took the bullets, clearly at the cost of her life, for New York junior senator and pastor Nathan Petrelli! The police are clearing the park now as the search for the gunman gets under… Oh… my… _GOD!_"

It was too late. There, before the impertinent camera, before the watching eyes of the whole world, the two bloodied bullet holes in Claire's chest suddenly healed up with an sucking noise, inaudible over the roar of the hysterical crowd. Claire's mouth opened as if to scream and the young woman sucked in a deep breath before coughing loudly several times. The girl doubled up in Nathan's arms, a hand pressed to her mouth. Then Claire looked up at her biological father, seeming startled and a bit intimidated at the sudden crowd around her. "N… Nathan?" she asked in a confused tone of voice.

"Are you okay, Claire?" he asked.

Claire raised the hand that she had used to cover her mouth during her coughing fit and opened it to reveal two blood-soaked rifle bullets. "I… I guess you should give those to the cops," she remarked, tipping them into Nathan's hands.

Nathan looked on in a combination of astonishment and pride as the young woman staggered to her feet. She stepped away, from her biological father, ignoring the startled paramedics, dumbfounded law enforcement officers and the TV camera crew, especially the reporter, who had fallen to his knees. "The UPS van," she hissed. She turned to one of the US Secret Service agents and grabbed him by the lapels. "The shooter was in the UPS van parked at the far end of the park! _Where did it go_?"

Responding to a tone of command in Claire's voice, the agent barked a question into his shirt-cuff microphone. As he did so, Claire peeled off her dress jacket and what remained of her blouse. The top half of her fighting garb was neatly folded up against the small of her back (even if she had been wearing it, its bullet-proof features would have been useless against rifle fire). She quickly unfolded it, dragging it up, over her body and zipping it shut as she did so before pulling up the mask to cover the sides of her face and her eyes.

"Ma'am?" the Secret Service man said. "The truck you asked about is heading west on 42nd Street. Uh… Ma'am? If I may ask… who are you?"

"West on 42nd," Claire said meditatively, ignoring the question as she pulled off her pants, revealing the lower half of her fighting garb. "They're either heading for the heliport or FDR Drive." The young woman turned towards the stage and jumped up onto it with an agility that belied the fact she had literally just returned from the dead. Claire increased the muscle density in her limbs and, with a sudden burst of speed and strength, leapt into the air, landing on top of the Public Library building. Without a second thought, she ran the length of the building, extending clambering spikes from her feet and hands and leapt at the side of the building on the opposite side of Fifth Avenue, trying to make up the distance with the UPS van which must be almost to the UN Headquarters building by now.

Behind her, she left a shell-shocked set of individuals and one very, very proud Nathan Petrelli. "Who was that?" gasped someone.

"That," Nathan said and then stopped himself before he could say 'That was my little girl'. He'd lost the right to call her that decades ago, although he still hoped to earn it back. Besides, there was no need to destroy all hope of Claire maintaining her anonymity. "That was a very special young woman."

"She healed up!" The paramedic was muttering. "But those were fatal injuries! How could that happen?"

"Very few things are 'fatal' to her, son," Nathan assured the African-American man, putting a friendly hand on her shoulder. He turned to the USSS agent Claire had been manhandling, his chief protection agent, actually. "Agent Harris?" he said. "You might need these." He dropped the rifle bullets into the agent's hand.

"Thank you sir," the agent said, still watching the direction Claire had gone. "Uh… sir? Do you know that… er… young lady's identity?"

Nathan looked at the man. He briefly considered denying it, but that wouldn't really wash with everything that had happened. Suddenly, he remembered something Claire told him one night just a little over a year ago when he found her, drunk, curled up in a foetal ball in the aftermath of the party/wake they had held after Sylar's death_. "I'm like the proverbial rubber ball," _she told him._ "It doesn't matter how hard you hit me, I just rebound!"_

Nathan looked at Agent Harris and, pitching his voice to ensure that the reporter would hear too, he said the words that history would record. "Just call her 'Rebound'," he said.

* * *

Donnie Mitchell was driving frantically, cursing New York's nearly incurable traffic problems as he desperately tried to put as much distance between himself and the botched attempt to finally silence that _blasphemer_ Nathan Petrelli. How could he have failed? He had everything planned to the last inch! No one knew _anything_! Then that blonde woman came rushing into the field of fire just as the trigger was pulled! Why had the Lord allowed this to happen? Was his mission not a blessed one?

"Any sign of the cops or the Feds?" he snapped over his shoulder at his partner (and the actual gunman) Charlie Lucas.

"Nothing," Charlie said. "They'll be coming soon, though, even if no one saw the shots coming from this van, they'll want to find anyone who lit away from the scene as fast as we did, man!"

"If God is on our side, then we will have dumped this junk-heap by the time they start looking for it!" Donnie said.

"Where did that bitch come from, anyway?" Charlie spat. "I told you that we should have tried a bomb, man!"

"And slaughter innocents?" Donnie said, turning his attention from the road to his partner.

"Hey, one murder or dozens? Besides, if they were with Petrelli they were as implicated in his blasphemy as… SHIT! LOOK OUT, MAN!"

At Charlie's shout, Donnie looked back at the road to see a blonde woman standing right in the van's path, her hand raised in a clear 'stop' gesture. Donnie's mind registered her weird grey-and-yellow costume but everything about her made him think 'cop', so he floored the gas pedal, making the creaking old delivery truck jump forwards. With a loud 'crash' the van struck the woman and dragged her underneath. Donnie swore he could hear a grinding noise as it dragged her along the blacktop.

"Shit! Shit, you're cold man!" Charlie said with a hint of fear.

"Any who stands in our way is as tainted by sin as…!" Donnie's declaration of justification was cut short by something from a nightmare. A bone-and-horn claw-like _blade_ suddenly punched up through the floor of the van, barely missing Charlie's foot. As the horrified gunman looked on, the blade carved a 'T'-shaped incision in the floor. A hand came through the gap and peeled back the metal and the woman in grey-and-yellow lifted herself up into the interior of the van.

"Hi, guys," Claire said with a vicious grin as the last of the impact and scrape injuries on her face healed up. "You know, you idiots trashed one of my favourite blouses. I've also got a headache coming on…" Claire looked at the long claw emerging from the end of her left arm and it morphed back into her hand. "So, this is just to let you know that this is going to hurt a _little_ bit more than usual."

The UPS van had been weaving pretty erratically for nearly a fifteen seconds before it suddenly swerved and crashed into a light pole at the corner of First Avenue opposite the UN building. The van started rocking back and forth as if something were trying to get out and everyone heard a long string of gunshots. There was a brief silence before the back doors burst open and a man, still holding a 9mm semi-auto, tumbled out onto the road. The two broken halves of some kind of Kalashnikov-clone assault rifle quickly followed.

A few seconds later the side door of the van slammed open and another man, a young skinhead-type, jumped out and fled. A few seconds later a blonde woman in a grey-and-yellow _super-suit_, for the lack of a better term jumped out too. She took two loping steps forwards and leapt with the athletic grace of a gymnast and landed on the other side of the man. People who later told the story would note that the move seemed to be like that of a… a… _cheerleader_ of some kind. The woman performed a straight kick that knocked the man back towards the stricken vehicle. "Game over, pal!" she growled.

"Demon!" the man screamed in response. "I'm on a holy mission! Begone!"

Claire stopped and cocked her head at her quarry. "So… you're a fundie?" she asked, puzzled. "Like, doesn't the Bible have a bit that says 'thou shalt not kill'? What happened to that today?"

Donnie's eyes glittered with fury and madness, the sight of Claire's powers in action having driven him over the edge. "It also says that you should smite sinners! And that _blasphemer_ Petrelli is first amongst them!"

"Whatever," Claire said, shaking her head. "I'm not sure about the Citizens Arrest bylaws in this state, but you're coming with me, you creep!" Claire stepped forwards, promising herself to let Nathan know that he _really_ should tone down the religious rhetoric in his speeches in future.

With a roar of fury, Donnie pulled an old police 38-calibre revolver out of his UPS overalls and fired three shots at Claire. The bullets flattened out against the bullet-proofed material of her costume, the kinetic force making the young woman stagger; her powers would see to it that she didn't even get _bruised_. Claire straightened up again. "I don't even need my healing powers to handle that popgun, pal," she said with a feral grin.

Donnie squeaked in terror and turned away from the advancing _monster_, dropping the useless gun. He ran over to the van and grabbed a tire iron from underneath the driver's seat. He turned around again to find Claire, now with her close-combat exoskeleton in place, was almost on top of him! He swung the iron as hard as he could at her head… and with a _clang_ the iron nearly bent double as it hit a long, bony armour plate growing out of the outside of Claire's lower left arm. Donnie lashed out with his fist and nearly broke his hand against the bony exoskeleton now protecting Claire's face. Claire's counter-punch to the chest was so strong that Donnie dented the side of the van where he hit it. The man staggered away, desperately trying not to faint from the pain of a half-dozen cracked ribs, and he tried to flee.

Claire leapt onto the van's roof and somersaulted through the air, landing comfortably in front of the fleeing man. She then turned and jumped forwards, tucking into a hand-stand that ended with a twirling kick. Both heels of her boots struck Donnie's face, sending the would-be assassin flying back and he landed on top of the unconscious Charlie, out for the count.

"Er… Stop?" The person in a 'crab walk' position in front of the NYPD beat cop didn't even _look_ human, with her body covered with bony armoured plates, some ending with the most lethal-looking cutting edges.

Claire looked at the cop and smiled as best as she could as she stood, re-absorbing her exoskeleton as she did so. "Hi, Officer, no cause for alarm," she chirped cheerfully. "Those bad men," she gestured at the two unconscious men, "tried to assassinate Dr. Nathan Petrelli in Bryant Square Park. I'm sure the US Secret Service wants a word with them."

Claire looked around herself and realised that there had to be well over 200 people staring at her. "Er… Well, time to go! Pleasure to be of service!" Extending climbing claws from her feet and hands (in what she thought of as her 'Urban Jungle Survival' form), Claire leapt vertically away to land a hundred feet up on the wall of the building above. Climbing quickly, she vanished from sight. She decided to head for the Petrelli house rather than try to get her stuff back from the Park. She trusted that Nathan would get them for her. Credit where credit's due, he had a talent for making people trust him; she didn't think he would have much trouble there.

* * *

"Surprisingly enough, no one actually got a clear shot of Claire's face," Nathan was telling Peter over the 'phone. "I'm sure some would say it was sheer luck that she jumped in front of me, just as that poor, misguided young man opened fire." Nathan smiled. "Yes, I'm sure that you would not choose to call them '_misguided_'. And I'm sure you know that _I_ do not consider it _chance_ that Claire was chose that particular moment to throw herself in front of me or that no one either saw or remembers her face." Nathan sighed and nodded at his brother's next words. "Yes, I know that we have agreed to disagree on that matter, Peter." Nathan listened again. "Heidi? She's what Claire would call 'freaked beyond freaking' but I think she realises that, given what she already knows about my abilities, it was possible Claire could be gifted too. It is the boys I am worried about. Claire was already the coolest big sister they ever dreamed that they could have. Now this? Keeping them quiet will be a chore."

Nathan looked up and saw Claire and Heidi enter the room. Claire, of course, was unmarred from her adventure. It was the recompense for being set apart by her gifts, Nathan supposed, that her beauty would never be tarnished and her youth would never fade. Heidi was a lot calmer now, although she continued to hover around Claire, having a difficult time accepting that the girl she considered a step-daughter in all but name was not even _bruised_ after being shot, run over and beaten with a tire iron.

"She's here now, Pete. Do you want a word?" Nathan listened. "Okay, I'll tell her." He paused again before laughing. "Yes, I'll tell her that too. Please give my love to Niki. Yes, I will. God go with you, Pete." Nathan pressed the button to hang up and looked at his wife and daughter. "Claire, your Uncle Peter said to tell you that, if you were five years younger, you would be looking at being grounded for that stunt," he said with a sober expression. Then he grinned. "He also says 'good job'. He's proud of you, Claire and so am I."

There was a long silence in the Petrelli lounge as Heidi and Claire sat down on the couch opposite Nathan's chair. "Nathan, Claire," Heidi finally said. "I just can't get my head around this. Are… are all your family like _this_?"

_Freaks you mean_, Claire thought darkly.

"These gifts seem remarkably strong in the Petrelli family," Nathan said, noting Claire's expression and wishing to avert an explosion. "My parents have it, I have it, Peter has it, our late brother Gabriel had it and, as you have seen, Claire has it. It manifests itself in a different way in everyone it touches it seems."

"But… the boys?" Heidi asked, a combination of fear and curiosity touching her voice.

"Well, despite what you may read in the comic books, the gifts do not manifest themselves at puberty," Nathan said. "I've met ten-year-olds with fully developed powers. So, the fact that neither Simon nor Montgomery has manifested any strange abilities would indicate that they probably have not inherited the 'gift'. It is possible that it is only passed on if both parents have the right genes."

Heidi seemed almost _comically_ relieved to hear that. Claire couldn't help but tweak the older woman. "Of course, not everyone's ability is as overt as mine," she said. "I've met people who have just enhanced eyesight or hearing, the ability to control machinery with a touch or to interface psychically with radio signals. Some people don't even realise they _have _abilities unless someone asks them and they realise something _weird _is happening." Heidi looked so horrified that Claire suddenly felt guilty given that the woman had always shown her the greatest kindness. "Ask them," she suggested, grabbing Heidi's suddenly-cold hand in her own. "Ask them if anything weird has ever happened to them and don't try to guide what they tell you with your questions. If they have the gift, then they will _know_. Whatever happens, make sure that they know that it won't make any difference to you. I know that I hid what I was for over a year because I was afraid of how my adopted parents would react."

Heidi shot Claire an odd look of mixed gratitude and annoyance before nodding and smiling. "I will, thank you, Claire." Heidi broke eye contact and seemed to be fighting a war inside her for a long moment before speaking again. "And… Thank you also for the life of my husband."

Several possible replies collided in Claire's mind. She chose the one that was literally true. "I did what I had to do."

* * *

"So," Nathan said. Claire was standing on the roof of the brownstone, looking out at the distant lights of mid-town.

"So?" Claire asked. She hated it when guys got cryptic.

"I was meaning to talk to you," Nathan said at last. "I was wondering… why did you call me 'Daddy'? as you ran to save me?"

Claire blushed. "I was so hoping you hadn't heard that," she said at last. "I'm really glad that none of the microphones picked that up either." Nathan nodded graciously but was obviously not about to let the question go. Claire sighed. "I don't know why, Nathan. At that moment, it was what my heart wanted to say." The young woman paused and thought for a moment. "I think…" she paused and then continued. "I've already lost one father to madness and hatred. I think that I didn't want to lose another one. _Especially_ one who has been trying so hard to deserve the name."

"I see," Nathan said. "Well… thank you for allowing the possibility in that moment of crisis, anyway."

"Nathan, I'm too old and too jaded to call _anyone_ 'Daddy' except in a moment of crisis," Claire said with a laugh. "For what it's worth though, you _have_ been trying to be a father, for all your faults. I'm grateful that you care enough to try." The two were silent for a while before Claire continued. "So, I was meaning to ask… What the _hell_ were you thinking when you told the press to call me by that corny name? 'Rebound'? It makes me sound like a character in a comic book!"

Nathan grinned. "According to Hiro, you are, remember? We all are!" He shook his head. "Seriously, it just seemed to suit you. No matter what happens, either to your body or to your heart, you rebound. You are strong like that, Claire."

Claire nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, I guess it _does_ fit me, doesn't it?" The young woman waggled a finger at her biological father. "It doesn't mean that I'm going to start going out in spandex to save the world full-time!"

Nathan couldn't help but laugh. "And thank God for that!" he declared. "No, I stick by what I said last year. We would do more harm than good that way. Just act when you feel the need and I think things will work out."

"I do too," Claire said quietly. "Um… Look, I've got to hit the sack." Nathan nodded. "'Night, Nathan."

"Goodnight, Claire." With a slight smile, Claire headed inside. There was no hug, not even the simplest kiss. However, Nathan knew how badly hurt Claire had been by life and knew that the fact she was willing to let him see her heart was far greater an intimacy than any physical demonstration. It would be enough. "You really _will_ save the world, my brave little girl," he announced quietly into the night before heading in to comfort a most unsettled wife and prepare for the battles that lay ahead.


End file.
